Diving has caused issues. I don’t think anyone could disagree there. There are a few positives of diving though. It has added a lot of convenience and I think there’s ways of keeping the main points of convenience while reducing negative impacts on the shared world sandbox experience.
Before diving (and before portal hopping) the general way that a lot of people played was to server hop the old slow way until they got a server with a world event they like, something they need for commendations, or something else interesting going on. Then they’d pretty much be on that server for the next few hours until boredom or a server merge. Server merges were also less common than now.
Supplies in general were in lower quantities so if the boredom was significant enough then restarting the session wasn’t quite as much of an inconvenience as it would be now. There were also fewer resources like chains, throwables, curses to potentially lose.
Back in those days the outposts were the bookends of your time on a server. It’s where you entered the server and where you’d hopefully leave the server. Because of that, and because of people staying on servers for longer, you could roughly keep track of the state of “your” server by keeping an eye on the outposts. You could see someone spawn in and head west and have a good idea that they’re probably going to hang out in the Shores of Plenty for a while. I think this feeling of semi-permanence was an under appreciated pull factor of the game.
In my uneducated opinion the way to fix diving would be another rework of the voyage system and to solidify the design intent of outposts.
The intent would be to cement the outposts as the bookends that they used to be. Diving would be a streamlined version of the old way of starting a session and would have restrictions. The current voyages would also be altered to be closer to their pre-2024 states. Multi-island, sometimes multi-chapter, journeys across the map. The intent of that being to increase the rate of neutral, positive, and mischievous player interaction as currently if you see a ship… generally speaking it’s hunting you, you’re hunting it, and/or it’s about to dive.
Firstly, the restrictions. Diving would reset your emissary flag to grade one. This is to further cement diving as a way to start a session and to disincentivise diving for trivial or anti-interaction reasons. Diving would only be possible while close to an outpost. This is for the reasons just above and to cement the outposts as the landing pads and departure points of the shared world. (The flag thing would also have to be applied to portal hopping)
This may be slightly controversial but I think diving should also not take you to the first island of your voyage or directly to the raid. I think diving should surface the player at an outpost and the voyage should select a valid target or start point close to that outpost. For example you might begin a session at Dagger Tooth, select a Sea Fort raid, and then surface at Plunder with your raid target being Old Brinestone Fortress; which is just under three squares away. This would slightly increase sail time but comes with the benefit of solidifying a sense of continuity in a server; something that I believe was an underrated part of SoTs core appeal. Every activity that a player might want to dive to (other than Tall Tale locations) is quickly and easily available from an outpost. The reduction in convenience is minor at worst. It also further cements outposts as predictable landing pads as they used to be.
I’d also like to add that I’m often a reaper emissary and I feel it’s unfair, and against design, for a G5 reaper to just turn up at random spots around the map. My crew agrees with me on that.
Secondly, the voyages themselves. The voyages need to be brought back to their original design as a cross-map journey. Sailing and navigation is fundamental to the game; and the small amount of executive function required for planning a route significantly adds to the experience in my opinion. These cross-map journeys would also lead to interactions with other players on their own voyages. Players that are less incentivised to be outright aggressive. I love PvP but the ratio is entirely out of balance. It’s bad for everyone. New players get hunted and stomped and PKers have fewer satisfying fights. It would bring back tentative alliances, friendly hellos, “we chill?” messages, and shenanigans. It would also revive tucking, which diving has largely killed. It would hopefully make the game feel more social like it used to.
There are some issues. A lot has been put into the current voyage system. New treasure was added and commendations related to that treasure. Problems like that are solvable. For example, if I was to remake the basic gold hoarder voyage, it would be several maps that scale with promotion level. The treasure on each island would be more randomly spread, as it used to be, scaled with promotion level, and slightly higher in quantity. Each island would also guarantee a “voyage item” for the commendations and to make RNG less potentially punishing. Small islands would guarantee at least one Sailor’s Chest, large island X maps would guarantee at least one Sea Master’s Chest, and riddle maps would guarantee at least one of the GH voyage trinkets. The probability of further voyage items can be balanced as needed.
I think I’ve done an okay job at laying out my general vision for my ideal voyage system. It doesn’t answer every question but it paints the general picture. I still have issues with things like raid loot disincentivising contesting world events but I think more text would take away from the general message.
I should also state that I’m very aware that I’ve never made a video game. I just like playing them. If any part of this sounds like I think I know what I’m talking about… just know that I’m aware that it’s very much from a player’s point of view
